


City of Dreams

by jedi_penguin



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), The Windrose Chronicles - Barbara Hambly
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:20:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26185561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedi_penguin/pseuds/jedi_penguin
Summary: Antryg has a knack for meeting interesting people.Set soon after "Becoming part 2" for Buffy and "The Silicon Mage" in the Windrose Chronicles
Relationships: Joanna Sheraton/Antryg Windrose
Comments: 3
Kudos: 3





	City of Dreams

Joanna smiled into her beer as she watched Antryg work the room. She didn’t usually like public gatherings—and bars had always been anathema to her before—but she loved watching Antryg work. He was so good with people. Not because he schmoozed, but because he honestly cared about other people, and was genuinely interested in them. Human beings fascinated him, in every universe.

Right now, he was staring intently at a girl across the room. She was small, about Joanna’s size, had hair the same shade as Joanna’s, but straight not curly. And the girl was gorgeous. Far, far more beautiful than the nerdy computer programmer. A small insecure part of her wondered why her boyfriend was so fascinated by this girl, but the larger part of her knew that Antryg was completely and utterly loyal. Her trust was rewarded when he commented, “I don’t believe that girl is actually twenty-one.”

Ah, that was it. Now that Joanna knew what Antryg was looking at, she had to agree. The girl was young, probably not even out of high school. Joanna was impressed that Antryg had made the call. The renegade wizard didn’t altogether understand why the people of this world insisted that young people under age twenty-one weren’t allowed to have alcohol, but the bar manager had been most insistent that Antryg never serve minors. After Joanna told him that it would be Jim who would suffer if Antryg served anyone who was under-aged, the wizard had been cautious about his customers.

Antryg left his towel on the bar and went over to the bar. For some reason the girl was sticking to the shadows. Antryg sensed that the girl had some reason to go unobserved and therefore approached her cautiously. He wasn’t prepared for the blonde to whirl around and bring a small wooden stake to his chest, and he **really** wasn’t prepared for the girl to be so strong. Antryg may have looked like a deranged scarecrow, but he was stronger than he looked. It didn’t matter. The tiny blonde completely overpowered him.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she snarled.

“I think a better question would be, what are you doing?” Antryg responded reasonably. “I don’t believe that you are old enough to be in this establishment.”

“Which is why I haven’t tried to order anything. I’m just minding my own business, tracking down a vamp--, um, somebody who owes me money.” The girl spun around, searching for her quarry, and then turned back to Antryg in a fury. “And thanks to you, I’ve lost him. He might be out, uh, borrowing money from unsuspecting victims right now!”

Antryg studied the girl soberly. She was thin, bordering on skinny, and looked like she hadn’t bathed in a few days. Antryg had spent enough time on the run to recognize the look. He would have liked to find her a place to stay, but first things first. “When was the last time you ate?”

She stared at him, obviously thrown off by the seemingly random question. “Uh—“ Suddenly her eyes shuttered, and she scowled. “I’m fine.” 

The falsehood in her voice was so patently obvious that Antryg saw no reason to acknowledge it. Instead, he held out his hand and smiled gently. He knew that he was good with skittish creatures, and something told him that this girl needed to be handled carefully. “I’m Antryg. I have a break coming up; let me get you something to eat.”

The girl lost her confused look, and suddenly turned hostile. “And I’m supposed to go out with a complete stranger because…?”

“Because you look like you haven’t eaten in a few days, and because you clearly have the ability to defend yourself should the need arise. I can bring my girlfriend along if it would make you feel safer, but something tells me that I’m in far more danger from you than the other way around.”

The girl grunted, and Antryg chose to take it as agreement. He went over to the Beautiful Kevin, and told his fellow bartender that he would be back in fifteen minutes. He then put his arm around Joanna and whispered in her ear that he needed protection from the strange girl. As always, she followed without question.

~*~*~ 

“So, my dear, do you often chase deadbeats into bars?”

The girl gave him a close-offed look, which was an improvement over the hostile glares she had been giving him earlier. “It’s a destiny thing. Do you often feed total strangers?”

"It's an atonement thing." Antryg shrugged. “I have a lot of bad things in my past to make up for.” He thought about his childhood with Suraklin and the fought down a cynical laugh; that was something of an understatement. “And everyone I should repay are dead. Strangers are all that are left to me.” Joanna put a comforting hand on his knee, reminding him that he did still have some personal responsibilities. The girl cringed and Antryg wondered whether she had lost someone recently, someone that she felt responsible for, someone she felt that she owed. “Do you have a place to stay, Anne?”

“Not yet. I just got to LA. I—“ she broke off, and Antryg wondered whether she would break down in tears. She didn’t. Instead, her look hardened, and the ex-wizard suddenly wondered what she had been through, to make her look so much older than her years. “I can take care of myself. As long as nobody else depends upon me, I’ll be fine.”

Antryg studied her carefully. She couldn’t live that way. He didn’t know her, but somehow, instinctively, he knew that to be true. He’d had enough years regretting his own hero complex to recognize the signs. But he also knew that she wasn’t ready to hear that yet; she’d discover it for herself soon enough. Instead, he nodded. “I’m sure you will be. But maybe you’d like a job anyway? A client of mine owns a diner, and he told me he’s looking for a waitress. He’s not the most attractive man I ever met, but he’s decent and would never dream of taking advantage of an employee. Why don’t you let me set it up for you?”

Anne glared at him, but finally nodded. “Why not? I think I might like to be a waitress for a while. Sure beats my old gig.”

Antryg wondered what that was. It couldn’t be any stranger or more difficult than **his** true vocation of Arch-Mage to the Council of Wizards. But here he was, a psychic by day and bartender by night. “There’s no place better to escape ‘old gigs’ than the City of Dreams. But Anne, sooner or later, everyone needs to wake up.” 

The girl nodded, but didn’t respond. As he watched her eat, Antryg wondered once again whether it was time for him to wake up, whether he should go back to his own world. For the moment, Joanna and his sense of self-preservation were more than enough to keep him here, but the pull of magic, of having a **purpose** were always there. He snuck a glance at his lover and saw a frightened but resigned look on her face; she always knew when he felt tugged towards his true home. The fact that she would never, ever ask him to stay once again strengthened his resolve to continue dreaming.

Antryg signaled to the waitress for the bill. When she came, he asked to borrow a pen and wrote down the name and address of his friend’s diner on a napkin. He pushed it across the table to Anne. “Tell him that Antryg sent you.”

The girl gave him the first genuine smile he’d seen from her. “Thanks, Antryg. For the meal and for—.” She shook her head, clearly not wanting to finish her thought. “Just… thanks.”

“You’re quite welcome, my dear. Please feel free to come see me if you need anything else, but please do try to come with a fake ID that at least **pretends** that you’re over 21 years of age.”

Anne smiled again. “Will do. So, I suppose you’ve got to go back to work?”

Antryg took Joanna’s hand and kissed it gently. “It’s not work, Anne. It’s just part of the dream."


End file.
